Mozilla Links Newsletter

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Mozilla Links - English Edition
Issue # 8 - December 9, 2003
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Welcome back to Mozilla Links!

As you may know, currently in-development Mozilla Firebird and 
Mozilla Thunderbird, are expected to become the main browser and
e-mail applications at some time during the first half of 2004. So you
may want to know that Mozilla Thunderbird 0.4 was just released. It
features bug (errors) fixes and welcome improvements like address 
book Palm synchronization.

Mozilla Firebird, the wildly popular in-development browser, presented
also a new feature called Download Manager, similar to the one already
available in the Mozilla Application Suite.

For people looking for presents for this holiday season, consider 
giving a copy of your favorite Mozilla products. You can buy the 
Mozilla CD at store.mozilla.org or even burn it yourself. It's not 
every day you can give or receive the best of something as useful as a
web browser. Remember: no pop ups, tabbed browsing, no security flaws
and you can make it look and do exactly what you want.

As always, your comments are very much appreciated. Please send them
to newsletter-feedback@mozilla.org

Percy Cabello
Mozilla Links

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In this issue:

1. BETTER MOZILLA
	- Mozilla Backup 1.1
	- Mozilla Champions Are Here to Help
	- Roaming Mozilla Profiles

2. THE NEWS
	- Mozilla 1.6 Beta Released
	- Mozilla 1.5.1 Released
	- Mozilla Thunderbird 0.4 Released
	- Mozilla Firebird Gets New Download Manager

3. MOZILLA INSIDER

4. MOZILLA PROJECTS
	- Project of the Week: Fast Component
	- Independent Status Report

5. MOZILLA LINKS POLL

6. CONTACT INFO


1. BETTER MOZILLA
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Featured Utility: Mozilla Backup 1.1
(developed by Pavel Cvrcek)

Mozilla Backup is a helpful utility that allows to pack bookmarks, 
history, sidebars, saved passwords, downloaded files list, cookies, 
e-mails, address books and general settings; all in a single file and
restore it in a new or reinstalled PC. In a matter of seconds you can
replicate your browsing and e-mail environments wherever you go.

It works with Mozilla Application Suite, as well as Mozilla 
Thunderbird (preview technology e-mail application) and Mozilla 
Firebird (preview technology Internet browser application). Currently
it's only available for Windows versions.

http://backup.jasnapaka.com/

****

Mozilla Links Tip: Mozilla Champions Are Here To Help
(thanks to Jay Garcia for his contribution to this article)

The Mozilla Champions is a group of volunteers with the self assumed
mission of providing support for Mozilla products to end users. It is
a spin-off of the Netscape Champions group, founded in 1995 by Chuck 
Simmons, Howard Beckerman, John Oliver and a handful of others.

After the creation of the Mozilla Foundation, earlier this year, 
Netscape Champions were warmly welcome to champion for Mozilla. 
As stated in the Mozilla Champiosns website 
(http://mozillachampions.mozdev.org), membership in the Champions 
program is for those who demonstrate an ongoing commitment to aid 
others using Mozilla products and get to be invited to the program.

Mozilla Champions attend as much as 1000 questions a month, from basic
to very advanced ones. Much of them within minutes and hardly within 
more than 24 hours.

You can reach Mozilla Champions via the various news groups on the 
secure server:
snews://secnews.netscape.com (Netscape and Mozilla) 

and via the Mozilla news server:
news://news.mozilla.org

Among other sources, you may also want to check this sites when 
looking for support:

http://mozillachampions.mozdev.org/faqs.html
http://forums.mozillazine.org/index.php?c=10&sid=479af4db8dfaff0507bf43078a4
601b5

****

Mozilla Links PowerTip: Roaming Mozilla Profiles
(contributed by mozillatips.com)

If you manage or work in a networked environment (either Novell or 
Windows based) where people may switch from one PC to another, like 
small businesses and home networks, it is very useful and easy to 
setup a roaming profile scheme, so your preferences will follow you
whenever and wherever you log on.

First, create a share for the folder where profiles will be created.
Usually you should do this in a server or an always turned on computer
so profiles are always available for all users.

Second, at any workstation, create a profile located in the shared 
area:
- Create a mapping to the shared area such as E:\
- Start Profile Manager (in Windows, look in Start/Programs/Mozilla)
- Click on the "Create Profile..." button. 
- Click "Next" in the information window.
- Enter a name for the profile and click on "Choose Folder...". 
Browse to E:\ to set your profile here.
- Select a Region if needed and press Finish.

You must repeat these steps for every user in you network.

Now your roaming profiles are created. You can now go to any other 
workstation and create a profile -with the same name- that points to
the same location.

http://www.mozillatips.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid
=96&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

****

Need more tips? Try the TipBar Extension to get the Tip of the Day in
Mozilla Firebird. Grab it at http://tipbar.mozdev.org

You can also visit http://www.mozillatips.com for more fun tips for 
your favorite browser.

Have a Tip or a PowerTip? Let other users know about it by sending it 
to newsletter-feedback@mozilla.org .

2. THE NEWS
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(contributed by MozillaZine, your source for Mozilla news and 
advocacy. http://www.mozillazine.org )

Mozilla 1.6 Beta Released
-------------------------
The Mozilla Foundation has released Mozilla 1.6 Beta. This latest 
milestone adds support for NTLM authentication on all platforms and 
improves the implementation on Windows. The automatic page translation 
feature has been restored (now powered by Google Language Tools) and a 
new version of ChatZilla, 0.9.48, is now included. In addition, several 
security and crash bugs have been fixed during the beta release cycle.

Mozilla 1.6 Beta Release Notes: 
http://www.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla1.6b/

Download Mozilla 1.6 Beta: http://www.mozilla.org/releases/#1.6b

Full story: http://www.mozillazine.org/talkback.html?article=4068

Mozilla 1.5.1 Released
----------------------
Mozilla 1.5.1 has been released for Mac OS X. This minor update fixes a 
downloading crash on OS X 10.1 and is recommended for OS X 10.1.x users.

Download Mozilla 1.5.1: http://www.mozilla.org/releases/#1.5.1

Full story: http://www.mozillazine.org/talkback.html?article=4033

Mozilla Thunderbird 0.4 Released
--------------------------------
Following two release candidates, the 0.4 release of Mozilla Thunderbird 
is now available. Thunderbird 0.4 features an updated look to 
Thunderbird's default theme, including a variety of new icons; better OS 
integration, cut and paste of images on Windows, and a number of bug 
fixes and other new features.

Mozilla Thunderbird 0.4 Release Notes: 
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/thunderbird/release-notes.html

Download Mozilla Thunderbird 0.4:
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/thunderbird/releases/0.4/

Full story: http://www.mozillazine.org/talkback.html?article=4054

Mozilla Firebird Gets New Download Manager
------------------------------------------

The latest nightly builds of Mozilla Firebird feature a new download 
manager for saving files. The Downloads sidebar and progress windows 
have been replaced by a new combined Downloads window that lists all 
current and completed downloads. Cancelled and failed downloads also 
remain in this list, with a 'Retry' option to allow transfers to be 
attempted again. A 'Clean Up' button lets users keep the Downloads 
window tidy by removing all completed, cancelled and failed downloads. 
There are also new preferences for the automatic removal of downloads 
from the list.

To streamline tasks such as saving cached images, the Downloads windows 
does not appear for files that take less than two seconds to transfer. A 
confirmation dialogue is displayed if you try to exit Firebird with 
downloads still in progress, eliminating the frustration of accidentally 
stopping your downloads when you're done browsing. For Windows users, an 
alert similar to the new mail notification from the Mozilla Application 
Suite and Mozilla Thunderbird appears near the taskbar when all 
downloads have completed.

Full story: http://www.mozillazine.org/talkback.html?article=4038

3. MOZILLA INSIDER
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(contributed by Alex Bishop)

Version 4.4.1 of the Netscape Portable Runtime (NSPR) has been released. 
NSPR allows Mozilla developers to access operating system functions 
(such as reading from and writing to files) in a platform-neutral way.

NSPR 4.4.1 Release Notes:
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/nspr/release-notes/nspr441.html

NSPR Project: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/nspr/

An important change for JavaScript developers happened recently when the 
JavaScript escape() and unescape() functions were changed to be more 
compliant with the ECMAScript standard (bug 44272). This means that they 
are no lomger suitable for URL manipulation. The encodeURI(), 
decodeURI(), encodeURIComponent() and decodeURIComponent() functions 
should be used instead.

Meanwhile, Mozilla Firebird now has a an offline mode (bug 171600) and 
developers Doug Turner and Darin Fisher have successfully got the 
program to run on a HP iPAQ 5555 Pocket PC.

Full status report: http://www.mozilla.org/status/2003-12-08.html

4. MOZILLA PROJECTS 
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(contributed by Brian King)

Project of the Week: Fast Component

Fast Component is a script that makes painless the process of creating
all the required project stub and build files and get you on your way
with an actual working XPCOM component in a few simple steps. Whether
you are creating a Mozilla extension to share with others, or do so on
a regular basis for work purposes, this tool is for you. Other files 
produced include a script for building an XPI file, and a script to 
test the new component. Long term plans include creating template 
chrome files for a project UI. See the documentation for more details.

http://fastcomponent.mozdev.org/

****

Independent Status Reports

The independent status reports include news and updates from 
Mozilla application and extension projects hosted on mozdev.org 
and elsewhere in the Mozilla community.

The latest report was posted on December 7, 2003 and includes:

MSDbar, a bioinformatics toolbar application to search the Worldwide 
Protein Data Bank, has reached version 0.5 with a new toolbar layout,
the ability to search using MSD, RCSB, PDBj or OCA resources, a search
by Author, Keyword, Ligand, PDB IDcode, Source, Medline and SwissProt
IDs and more, and other new and improved features.
http://msdbar.mozdev.org

wmlbrowser, allowing you to browse WML (the HTML equivalent for mobile
devices) pages in Mozilla/Firebird, has released 0.4.1. This brings 
the installable package up to date and fixes one outstanding problem
with resolving relative links.
http://wmlbrowser.mozdev.org/

Mouse Gestures, elegantly control your browser by drawing gestures,
has released a new nightly build of its popular Mouse Gestures 
extension for Mozilla 1.x / Firebird. Changes include: supports right
mouse button gestures on Linux, allows easy gesture sharing: Import 
gesture mappings just by clicking special links on webpages, or 
publish your own! A gesture sharing page was set up on mozdev.

http://wiki.mozdev.org:8080/cgi-bin/mozdev-wiki.pl?ProjectOptimoz/GestureExc
hange
http://optimoz.mozdev.org/gestures/

MozWho, a Bookmark Portal, Version 0.3.9.1 is a small version 
increment but with significant updates! 
- Bookmark search now triggers a new URL, allowing bookmarking and 
back/forward operations. 
- Use a bookmark keyword and the %s technique to create a url shortcut
for bookmark search.
- A separate function for serializing bookmarks to RDF in hopes of 
bootstrapping RDF work outside of Mozilla.
http://mozwho.mozdev.org/

MozManual, a manual for first time users -- a brief overview and 
feature guide, Draft 0.8 is essentially the final version - remaining
changes will be additional required error corrections, and internal 
hyperlinking (bookmarks) in the PDF version. Also included is a 
"reviewer's guide" to address FAQs and similar issues. Target date 
for final 1.0 version is Dec. 31, 2003 or sooner.
http://mozmanual.mozdev.org/

URLFix, fixes a URL typed using wrong keyboard layout, version 0.1.0.3
fixes the IP address bug (http://mozdev.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=4941)
http://urlfix.mozdev.org/

ConQuery, query web services via context menu of the browser,
on Dec 4 2003, ConQuery 0.4a was released with new features including
support for lists of values in queries and selective installation of 
plugins.
http://conquery.mozdev.org/

Xprint, enables X11 applications such as Mozilla/FireBird/ThunderBird
/Eclipse etc. to use devices like printers, FAX or create documents 
in formats like PostScript, PDF, PCL, etc., released 009 experimental
prototype. New Features:
- an all-new font download engine for the PostScript DDX which can
download TrueType/OpenType/PS Type42/PS Type 1 fonts to any PostScript
Level 2/3 printer as smoothed+optimised outline data
- better support for CUPS
- PDF output
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/xprint/
http://xprint.mozdev.org/

Moji, helping foreigners learn the Japanese language, version 0.5 
introduces a Japanese to English dictionary based on edict.
http://moji.mozdev.org/

L10NZilla, software to help in Mozilla based apps localization (l10n)),
released its first version and supports the basic functionality 
required to archive, edit, produce and build statistics from 
translations of any Mozilla based application.
http://l10nzilla.mozdev.org/

StumbleUpon, A toolbar to find and share great web sites, version 1.9
has been released. Included are bugfixes, keyboard shortcuts for 
stumbling and rating, descriptive text for all buttons, and some code
cleanup. This is the first release to have its CVS hosted on mozdev.
http://stumbleupon.mozdev.org/

easyGestures, Adds UI with mouse gestures and customizable actions,
notable highlights in v2.3.0 include 3 new major functionalities, 8
new actions and changed uninstall code.
http://easygestures.mozdev.org/

DictionarySearch, which Looks up selected (English) words in an 
online dictionary, v0.1 provides a very easy way to lookup an english
word on a webpage in dictionary.com. Simply select the word of which 
you want to know the meaning. Then right click and select "Dictionary
Search for ...". A new tab will open with the meaning of the word you 
selected.
http://dictionarysearch.mozdev.org/

ReloadEvery , automatically reload webpages every so many seconds or 
minutes, v0.1 of this extension adds an option to the context menu 
to reload every so many seconds or minutes the web page you are 
viewing.
http://reloadevery.mozdev.org/

Read more about each of these projects in the full report at:
http://www.mozillazine.org/articles/article4061.html

5. MOZILLA LINKS POLL
----------------------------------------------------------------------

On our last issue we asked you which was the main reason you prefer
Mozilla products. Here are the results:

- Open source           20% |]]]]
- Free                   5% |]
- Standards compliant   21% |]]]]
- Better feature set    38% |]]]]]]]]
- Extensibility          3% |]
- Security              13% |]]]

(*) Results may not sum up to 100% due to rounding.

This issue poll: For how long have you been using Mozilla products as 
your main e-mail or browser application?
- 5 months or less
- Between 6 months and one year
- Between one and two years
- More than two years ago

Let your voice be counted at http://newsletter.mozdev.org

---------------------- MOZILLA PRODUCTS ------------------------------

Mozilla CDs are available worldwide right now for only US$3.95. This 
is a great opportunity to contribute with the Mozilla Foundation and 
have a handy copy of your favorite Internet applications to share with
your friends. 

You can also subscribe to the Mozilla CD for US$16.95 and get every 
Mozilla CD release delivered to your hands for a year.

Visit http://store.mozilla.org now!

Mozilla T-shirts are also available for pre-order starting at $12.95.

7. CONTACT INFO
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Mozilla Links(TM) is a bi-weekly electronic newsletter published by 
the Mozilla Links Newsletter project.     
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Copyright 2003 by the Mozilla Links Contributors. 
The Mozilla Links Newsletter is released under the Creative Commons
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Mozilla Links is translated into dutch, german, japanese and polish.